Eighteen #2
Why not? A million reasons why not, but I can’t find the words. I look up and down the street. What if I’m caught, outside a synagogue ?
“Walter—”
“Look, just wait here. I promise, I won’t be a moment.
” His face is alive with excitement, and he jumps up the four steps to the door and hammers on it, looking around at me, grinning.
I melt back against the wall of the building opposite.
A few seconds later, a man opens the door and Walter is swallowed inside.
I stare at the iron door. What goes on behind it?
Strange, alien prayers; foreign ways and an exotic language I don’t understand?
Or perhaps devil worship and evil plotting?
There is a pounding in my head and the seconds stretch to minutes.
Waiting is unbearable. I check the street countless times.
I could run away, but my feet don’t budge.
A man in an overcoat and hat suddenly rounds the corner.
I panic. What should I do? I look so suspicious standing here in front of this place .
I push myself off the wall and begin to walk slowly along the pavement toward the man.
I cross the street and pass him with my head bowed.
A few more paces and I dare to look back.
He’s gone. I exhale and slowly retrace my steps toward the synagogue.
At last Walter appears again from behind the iron door.
“Sorry! The rabbi wanted to chat... here.” He runs down the steps toward me, smiling, and places a book in my hands. “I know how much you loved Metamorphosis . I remember. Hopefully you’ll enjoy these stories just as much.”
I stare at the mottled brown cover, slightly dog-eared at the edges, with Franz Kafka, Betrachtung stamped on the front.
“It’s a rare first edition,” Walter says with pride in his voice.
“But... what am I to do with it? What if someone at home finds it, or sees me reading it? Walter, how can I possibly take this thing home? Besides, I might lose it!” I hold the book out toward him.
It feels dangerous in my hands, like a stick of dynamite that might explode at any moment. “Please, take it back,” I whisper.
“Come on, Hetty! I risked... I lied to the rabbi—told him it was for an ailing relative. I thought you’d be pleased... I’m sure you can find somewhere to hide it in your room. I remember how you loved to read, and these types of books, it’s impossible to get them anymore.”
“ Illegal , Walter, not impossible.”
“Well, true. But so many have been destroyed.”
“I know, and it’s kind and thoughtful...” I stare at his face, full of disappointment and hope; and my insides soften.
I hug the book to my chest, then slip it into my pocket.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be ungrateful.” I reach for his hand and we walk away from the synagogue. “I will treasure it, I promise. You’re so good to me.”
“I’d give you the world if I could,” he says tenderly.
Haltingly, he moves me back against the wall of the adjacent building. And then his arms are tight around my waist, drawing me in, and he kisses me properly for the first time. Slowly, gently, until everything fades away and I no longer care about anything but him.
S ITTING IN MY window seat, I stare at the Kafka resting in my hands. Betrachtung. Contemplation. But will I be able to bring myself to read it? Perhaps I can skim it and then get rid of it. Walter really doesn’t understand. He can’t, or he wouldn’t have burdened me with it.
I hear a knock at the door and quickly shove it behind my back as Ingrid’s face appears. Her eyes dart about more than usual. There is a slight flush to her pale cheeks.
“I’ve come to lay the fire,” she says. “Before you need to change for dinner...”
She kneels in front of the fireplace and sweeps yesterday’s ash into a bucket.
“Your mother tells me I won’t have to do this for much longer,” she says cheerfully.
“Oh?”
“Herr Heinrich has ordered a special boiler that will heat the whole house,” she tells me. “It’s the new thing. For those who can afford it, anyway.”
She puts the bucket to one side and begins to crumple up pieces of newspaper, arranging the balls in the grate.
“Imagine that! Automatic heating in every room in the house. ’Cept ours, I suppose,” she adds.
“It’s much colder in this house than it ever was in our flat,” I tell her, glancing out through the almost-bare branches of the cherry tree, into the night.
She begins to pile kindling wood on top of the newspaper.
“Ah, but your heart must be warm, even if your body is not.”
“Sorry?” I stare at her as she bends over, the nodules of her spine forming a bony ridge beneath her black dress. She places the kindling carefully around the edges of the grate.
“Love warms the heart, like nothing else can.”
Panic seizes me in an icy grip.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I mean,” she says, straightening her back and turning toward me, her lips sliding down into a reverse smile, “wasn’t it you I saw with a handsome young chap in Salamander’s this afternoon?”
One beat. Two beats.
“You were mistaken,” I say. Our eyes lock. “I wasn’t in Salamander’s this afternoon. Why would I go to a place like that?” I snort.
“How strange.” Her brow knits. “I could have sworn it was you.”
“Not me. Must be someone who looks like me. There’s a girl, she used to be in my class, Freda. She looks a bit like me. Same hair. Must have been her you saw.”
I grip the book tight in my fingers. Ingrid turns back to the fireplace. Strikes a match, cups her hand around the flame, and sets the paper balls alight.
I try to breathe, but my chest is so tight I fear I’m going to choke.
“I was with the BDM, marching in the countryside,” I tell her, even though, as I say it, it sounds lame.
She rocks back on her heels watching the flames catch the paper and the kindling. The fire crackles and spreads.
She stands, picks up her tools and her bucket, and turns to me.
“My mistake then, Fr?ulein Herta. How silly of me. Ring the bell if the fire goes out. It’s a windy night, and I had terrible trouble with the one downstairs just now.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
We smile at each other, but there is no warmth in the gesture. From either side.
She leaves the room and I’m alone with my thoughts.
Terrifying visions of what she saw. Would she remember Walter?
It’s years since he came to the house, and he’s changed so much.
Besides, even if she did recognize him, would she even know he’s a Jew?
I rack my brain, trying to remember if there was ever a conversation at home when his Jewishness was discussed, but I can’t think straight.
Did she follow us and see me outside the synagogue, or even see us kiss?
Why else would she have said the word love ?
Was it so obvious? I pace the room. What if she makes inquiries or tells Mutti?
Should I have said something different? Well, it’s too late now.
I will simply have to stick to the story.
She is mistaken, and it’s her word against mine.
I push the book under my mattress, next to the journal.
I think about a recent lesson with Herr Metzger.
The one where he spoke of his relief at the implementation of the 1935 Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.
The law that will save the German people from the poisoning of our blood by the bacterium of the Jew.
Before the Führer took power in 1933, the body of the German people had been severely ill.
At last, the infection of minds and bodies is being cured.
We are becoming racially healthy once more.
The punishment for relations between Jews and Germans is severe. Racial defilement is a heinous crime.
Oh, Walter, what the hell have we done?